Headlined by HELMET, ST VITUS and CROWBAR, The 2011 Metalliance Tour will kick off in just about one month. The tour will proudly be supported by metal heavyweights KYLESA, RED FANG, HOWL and ATLAS MOTH on all dates.

The tour is sponsored by Revolver Magazine, Loudtrax, Brooklyn Vegan, Mosh Potatoes Cookbook and Giddy Up! Sauces. “We are glad to be part of this tour; I think it’s a great bill. The bands I have heard so far each have a strong musical identity as opposed to so much of the generic, lowest common denominator music out there,” says HELMET front man Page Hamilton. More info can be found at www.metalliancetour.com

One grand prize winner will be randomly selected for a Dinner With The Bands, an autographed Mosh Potatoes Cookbook and one T-shirt from each of the bands.

One second-place winner will randomly be selected for a one-on-one guitar lesson with Kirk Windstein from Crowbar and an autographed Mosh Potatoes Cookbook.

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Legendary alternative metal band HELMET will perform their 1992 platinum-selling release of Meantime in its entirety. The Interscope Records release gave the band mainstream attention with songs like “Unsung” and “In The Meantime”. With the band’s renewed success after getting back together in 2004, this tour will be one of the most anticipated of 2011.

One of the most highly influential Doom Metal bands in America, SAINT VITUS are regarded as one of the first bands of the genre starting out as early as the 1970’s. The band featuring Scott “Wino” Weinrich, bassist Mark Adams, guitarist Dave Chandler and drummer Henry Vasquez have influenced so many bands in Doom and Metal . “Saint Vitus is more than ready to infect The Metalliance Tour! We’ve been wanting to do something like this for some time now…so prepare for destruction!!” says lead guitarist Dave Chandler. The band has done a handful of shows and some European Festivals but this will be their first full US tour in over a decade.

CROWBAR front man Kirk Windstein concludes, “Wow! This tour is gonna rule! I’ve loved Helmet since the beginning and loved St. Vitus even longer. With the new Crowbar record having hit the streets by then, look out! This bill will bring just what we need to crush each city with an avalanche of stylistic thunder!”

It’s not the first time in the history of rock music that coincidence led to the discovery of hidden treasures: a carrier bag full of music tapes (note: tapes!) turned out to be the basis for “Diamonds and Dirt”, the first solo release by Scottish guitarist/composer BRIAN ROBERTSON, due to be released on 28 March 2011 (Germany: 25 March; US/Canada: April 5th) on SPV/Steamhammer. “I thrust the bag into my friend Søren’s hand and said: ‘Why don’t you listen to these some time when you’re bored. They’re a number of my previously unreleased compositions.'” Søren Lindberg from Sweden happens to be one of former Thin Lizzy/Motörhead guitarist BRIAN ROBERTSON’S closest friends and frequently works as his driver when he has equipment which needs transporting. “He had plenty of time to listen to that pile of tapes in his truck on the way back to Scandinavia,” ROBERTSON remembers, “and he called me as soon as he reached Stockholm: ‘BRIAN, there’s some brilliant stuff on those tapes. We should make an album of them!'”

Lindberg already had a number of musicians in mind: he enlisted two of his country’s most renowned instrumentalists in drummer Ian Haugland (Europe) and bassist Nalley Påhlsson (Treat). Says Robertson: “They’re great, the best rhythm section I’ve played with since Phil Lynott and Brian Downey.” Leif Sundin (ex-Michael Schenker Group) was recruited as an additional vocalist, and the amazing Liny Wood joined the fold as backing vocalist. “It wasn’t easy to get all these extremely sought-after musicians in one place at the same time, which is why the work on “Diamonds and Dirt” took longer than originally scheduled. But it was important to us to get the best possible line-up, so we preferred to wait until they could all be there.”

The result is a superb album at the interface of hard rock with definite blues elements and gritty mainstream, wonderfully melodic and full of excellent guitar arrangements. In terms of compositions, the album presents a number of outstanding Robertson numbers, such as the driving title track, the truly intense “Passion”, “Texas Wind” with its wonderfully atmospheric beginning, and the powerful “Devil In My Soul” with its awesome wah-wah guitar solo. The album is rounded off by tracks from Robertson’s extremely successful collaboration with Phil Lynott during their Thin Lizzy days in the years 1974 to 1978 and his fellow-countryman Frankie Miller, with whom he recorded “Dancing in the Rain” in 1986, among others.

“I think Phil would be proud of what I’ve done with those Lizzy songs,” says Robertson. “My guitar style is audibly stronger than it was back then when we admittedly still sounded a little wooden.” Robertson is referring mainly to “It’s Only Money” (from the 1974 recording “Nightlife”), which has received in 2011 the very polish it still lacked in the mid-1970s. The yet unreleased Robertson/Lynott co-composition “Blues Boy” and the Lizzy track “Running Back” (off JAILBREAK, 1976) present Robertson as an impressive instrumentalist. Coincidentally, the track has been recorded in two versions: “I said to Søren: ‘Let’s cut it the way I hear that number.’ So we tried several interpretations, among them a slower version, which we’ve also included on the album.” The three Frankie Miller numbers, “Mail Box”, “Do It Till We Drop (Drop It!)” and “Ain’t Got No Money”, sound equally accomplished. To keep Miller happy, former Riverdogs frontman, Rob Lamothe, was enlisted to record the latter. “I played the first version to Frankie, but he didn’t like my vocals. So we asked Rob to sing the number. Frankie was very pleased with the result.”

Rightly so, because the album with its top-notch production courtesy of Robertson, Søren Lindberg and Chris Laney fascinates from the first to the very last note. We can only hope that we will get an opportunity to see this illustrious line-up live on stage. “For organizational reasons, I have my doubts that it will be possible to get these musicians together for a full tour, but who knows: we may always turn up for a number of festival gigs this summer. I’m sure we’d all enjoy that.” So would the audience …